Devices for aquatic exercise or water gymnastics are in frequent use. They enable harder work to be performed when exercising in water and when pushing or pulling with a limb of the body, in particular with a leg or an arm. For this purpose, such a device that is known to the person skilled in the art has a base arranged to be held with said limb of the body, in particular a foot or a hand, or indeed a calf or a forearm.
The purpose of such an aquatic exercise device is to increase resistance when pushing or pulling with the leg or with the arm in order to make the physical or muscular work harder, and then, on the contrary, not to make it harder for the limb to return to its initial position for starting a new work cycle, by limiting the effort that the user needs to make during the return stroke so as to afford the user a recovery time and so as to avoid physical or muscular fatigue.
Various devices for aquatic exercise are known to the person skilled in the art, such as, for example, the devices disclosed in Documents U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,651,710, 6,899,581, 7,147,526, 4,685,667, 4,509,744, US 2004/0259691, WO 2004/112910, U.S. Pat. No. 6,540,647, EP 1 498 159, FR 739 070, FR 1 049 110, FR 1 502 877, FR 2 537 876.
Documents U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,667 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,899,581 disclose devices for aquatic exercise that are in the form of a disk provided with a base at its centre for enabling the disk to be held in the hand. In Documents U.S. Pat. No. 5,651,710 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,147,526, the aquatic exercise device is in the form of a paddle including a base enabling said paddle to be held in the hand, or indeed enabling the hand to be inserted into it in the manner of a hand wearing a glove, said paddle possibly having curved shapes and orifices, in particular, for facilitating the flow of fluid so as to limit the resistance of the device when exercising and when pushing or pulling with the arms. In Documents US 2004/0259691 and WO 2004/112910, the device is constituted by an element of rounded shape, in the form a dome-shaped or semi-spherical bell provided with a base enabling said device to be held. The dome-shaped bell is provided with perforations for reducing the resistance of the device and for stabilizing it while it is being moved through the water, and flat elements or rigid fins increasing the resistance of the appliance when pushing with the arm. In Document U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,744, the device is in the form of a bat or paddle provided with a base for enabling said bat to be held, the bat being slightly deformable so as to reduce the resistance of the bat while the device is returning to its initial position after an effort has been made.
Such aquatic exercise devices suffer from the drawback of requiring considerable effort to be sustained while the device is returning in the water to its initial position for doing a new work cycle, due to the rigidity of said device, the paddles, bats, flat elements or fins that are rigid or possibly slightly deformable, maintain considerable resistance in the water during the return stroke to the initial position. The person doing the exercise therefore has almost no recovery time, and must continue directly with the next work cycle. In addition, such devices offer little or no stability during the return strokes.
Documents EP 1 498 159 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,540,647 disclose aquatic exercise devices having a base that enables the device to be held with the hand or with the foot, and relative to which one or more paddles are hinged by means of mechanical hinges, the paddle(s) offering resistance in the water while the arm or the leg is moving, and then collapsing during the return stroke of the limb for returning to do a new exercise cycle. Such a design of a device equipped with mechanical hinges can give rise to pinching on the body of the user when said user makes a movement with the device and positions the mechanical hinge or the adjacent edges of two paddles in contact with a portion of the body at the time of pushing or pulling on the device that opposes resistance, i.e. when the paddles are deployed. In addition, the paddles can be deployed independently of one another and give rise to problems of stability or poor distribution of the effort while the device is moving in the water.
Documents FR 739 070, FR 1 049 110, FR 1 502 877 and FR 2 537 876 disclose aquatic exercise devices having a base designed to be held with the hand or with the foot, or indeed to be disposed around the ankle or the leg. In addition, such devices have a skirt or flexible webbing that is corolla-shaped, that is secured to the base, and that is suitable for deforming under the pressure from the water exerted while the device is moving, i.e. while it is being pushed or pulled. When the device is provided with flexible webbing, said webbing comprises metal reinforcements or slats extending radially from the base to the outside end of the skirt, these reinforcements or slats making it possible to stiffen the skirt when it is deployed, and when it opposes resistance in the water, i.e. when the corolla opens. In that design, the reinforcements or slats might deform and the webbing might turn inside out when pressure that is too high is exerted on said webbing.
In devices having skirts that are more rigid and that are provided with ribs, such as those described in FR 2 537 876, the skirts collapse at said ribs while the arm or the leg is returning to its initial position after having pushed or pulled on the device that opposes resistance. In that design, the user might be pinched while preparing to do a new work cycle, while the skirt is redeploying and is positioned in contact with a portion of the body, giving rise to a risk of the skin being pinched in said rib on the skirt. In addition, the design of the skirt suffers from the drawback of not collapsing uniformly around the limb when it collapses at the ribs while the device is returning to its initial position, during which return stroke the device maintains considerable resistance and can swerve back and forth in the water.
Documents FR 1 011 324 and U.S. Pat. No. 1,545,807 are also known. They disclose aquatic exercise devices that comprise a base arranged to be held with a foot or with a hand, and webbing, in particular in the form of a corolla.
That webbing comprises a flexible skirt and rigid fins mounted on the skirt. In addition, abutment means are arranged on the base so as to form abutments against the rigid fins while the skirt is moving.
In FR 1 011 324, the inside peripheral edge of the skirt is secured inside a peripheral edge rolled in the form of a scroll on the base, the deployment of the skirt making it possible for its inside peripheral edge to roll around the scroll-shaped edge until a rear circular portion of each of the fins comes into contact with said scroll-shaped edge and until the tension on the inside peripheral edge rolled around the scroll-shaped edge stops the rolling and thus stops the deployment of the skirt.
In U.S. Pat. No. 1,545,807, a first version consists in fastening the inside edge of the flexible skirt inside the base so as to position the fins, mounted on the flexible skirt, in the vicinity of the abutment means constituted by an outside rim on the base, the rear angular edge of each of the fins coming into abutment against said rim while the skirt is deploying. In a second version disclosed in that document, each of the fins mounted on the flexible skirt is made up of a rigid core incorporated in a flexible covering, the inside edge of said flexible covering and the inside peripheral edge of the skirt being concomitantly fastened to the inside of the metal base, so that the rear angular edge of the core comes into abutment against an outside metal rim arranged on the base.